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End of the Cold War:

The Collapse of the Soviet Union and Fall of the Berlin Wall

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Eastern Bloc�

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

15 Republics: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, �Uzbekistan

7 Satellite

Countries:

Bulgaria, Czech Republic, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia

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Was the Collapse Due to Force? No

  • The Cold War cost more than $11 trillion. But the collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellites was not a result of force.
    • No NATO tank fired a shot.
    • No bomb fell on the Kremlin.

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A Home-Grown Event

  • Instead, a massive, home-grown insurgency, led by a number of different participants, contributed to the collapse:
    • Workers
    • Intellectuals
    • Protesters
    • Reformers

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The Gorbachev Revolution

  • Mikhail Gorbachev, who came to power in 1985 as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), recognized that the Soviet Union could not remain politically and economically isolated and that the Soviet system had to be changed if it was to survive.

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Gorbachev's Five-Point Plan

  • The key pieces to Gorbachev's plan for the survival of the Soviet Union were a series of reforms:
    1. Glasnost (openness) – greater freedom of expression
    2. Perestroika (restructuring) – decentralization of the Soviet economy with gradual market reforms
    3. Reform of the Communist Party

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The Objective: Survival

  • Gorbachev knew that the Soviet Union would have to change if it was to survive.
    • Central planning in a modern industrial economy brought many inefficiencies.
    • The factory management system provided little incentive to make technological improvements and every incentive to hide factory capacities to ensure low quotas
    • The socialist farm system was inefficient – there were poor worker incentives and storage and transportation problems.
    • The Soviet State could no longer afford the high defense spending that accompanied the Cold War.�

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Insistent Calls for Change

  • He believed that his reforms were necessary and used his leadership and power to attempt to implement them.
  • The policy of glasnost (openness) made it possible for people to more freely criticize the government's policies. When people realized it was safe to speak out, the calls for change became more insistent.

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Reforms Were Too Slow

  • The gradual market reforms and decentralization of the economy (perestroika) were too slow and failed to keep pace with the crisis and his people's demands.
  • The Soviet Union was suffering a deterioration of economic and social conditions and a fall in the GNP.

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Wave of Demonstrations

  • Beginning in September 1989, many demonstrations shook Communist regimes across eastern Europe.
  • Many East German emigrants went through Czechoslovakia and Hungary to the West, weakening the communists

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A tram is blocked by East German demonstrators in the center of the city in October 1989. Their banner reads: 'Legalization of opposition parties, free democratic elections, free press and independent unions.'

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The Wall Came Down

  • Finally, on the night of November 9, 1989, ordinary Germans poured through the Berlin Wall. The GDR quickly disintegrated, and by the end of 1990, all of East Germany had been incorporated into the wealthy, powerful Federal Republic of Germany.

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Events in Eastern Europe

  • Communist governments in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Bulgaria either tumbled or underwent reform.
  • The Communist dictatorship in Romania fell after a week of bloody street battles between ordinary citizens and police, who defended the old order to the bitter end.

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Radical Change

  • Radical change finally reached the Soviet Russia in August 1991, when thousands of Russian citizens poured into the streets to defeat a reactionary coup d'état (take-over).

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Independent Republics

  • The Communist party quickly collapsed, and the Soviet Union began the painful and uncertain process of reorganizing itself as a loose confederation of independent republics.

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Boris Yeltsin

  • Boris Yeltsin, who headed the Russian Republic, replaced Gorbachev as president of a much weaker state.
  • Gorbachev found that there was no Soviet Union to lead and retired into private life.

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Nobel Peace Prize

  • Gorbachev won the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize. He brought a peaceful end to the cold war, and dramatic change to his country's economy, though not in the way he intended.

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The End of the Cold War

  • The Cold War was over, brought to a close not by the missiles and tanks of the principal participants, but by the collective courage and willpower of ordinary men and women.

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Ronald Reagan’s Role

  • In the United States, partisans of Ronald Reagan claimed much of the credit for ending the Cold War.
  • Reagan called the Soviet Union as an “an evil empire”
  • Spent more money than the Soviets could to prove that the US was better.

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Gorbachev’s

REFORMS�

Glasnost�

Ronald Reagan’s

FOREIGN POLICY�

Perestroika�

Reform�Comm Party�

EVIL EMPIRE�Speech�

MILITARY �BUILDUP

ARMS RACE

East German�NATIONALISM

The Collapse of the Soviet Union�and the End of the Cold War

Ordinary �MEN & WOMEN

WILL POWER

COURAGE

Eastern Bloc

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics